Playmobil Princess Palace or Unicorn Castle - worth it?

I am wondering about one of these for DD1's birthday and Christmas present. We've just been to the Playmobil Park and the kids have had a ball playing with the models on display.

On the pricey side so I'd have to keep an eye on the prices and wait for any bargains. Any advantages/disadvantages to either one? Obviously the Palace is rather large and you have to buy the rooms separately which all adds to the cost....that said, I have two girls so am hoping it would get a good few year's use.

When I was looking for a castle for my dd's to share last Christmas I looked at both of these. I was told both in rl and on mn that the playmobil castles fall to pieces very easily. In the end I went for the Melissa and Doug castle populated with playmobil people and furniture, which has worked really well for us, it comes ready assembled, looks nice and is very solid.

I'm not sure how you feel about secondhand things, but I got a fantastic deal on eBay getting a load of furniture and people.

I looked at both of these last year and felt they didn't offer that much value for money. We settled on the grand hotel ( which we got off Amazon at a bargain price of £40) it has been amazing and comes with all the furniture etc as a complete set.

Not sure this is any help though if Dd specifically wants fairy/ unicorn theme.

My just-turned-3 year old was given the Unicorn Palace for Christmas last year.She absolutely loves it and has probably played with it daily since. In fact, she loves it so much that her grandparents are clubbing together and getting her the Princess Palace this year. :-o (Thanks to Argos 3 for 2)

We haven't experienced any problems with the Unicorn Palace coming apart. It seems quite sturdy to us.

If your daughter is as princess and fairy mad as ours, she'll love them

For us (dd6 and ds9), the fiddly bits are definitely the draw when it comes to Playmobil, whereas the buildings we have bought have remained largely untouched. When my dd turned 4 or 5 (can't remember which), she received all the royal palace furniture sets. We have also added unicorns, forest pieces, other animals etc. She does have a simple (but very pretty) cheap cardboard castle (from Djeco), but tends to use the Playmobil on the floor building castles/prisons/mazes/towers with blocks or Magnatiles, changing the set-ups each time she plays. So I would recommend splurging on furniture/accessories/figures etc, rather than the actual buildings. There seems to be more flexibility and more imaginative potential that way, but of course, it would depend on how the individual child prefers to play. Playmobil is wonderful though!

We bought the Princess Castle for DD for her 5th birthday last year. She loved it. It's very big but fits PERFECTLY on the Chad Valley Playtable (normally £100 but it was £40 in the sale on Argos recently). It has drawers underneath for all the bits aswell - fab!!

The castle doesn't really come apart unless you play roughly with it.

Having said that, I did buy it for the massively bargain price of £50 in the Boots sale on Boxing Day the previous Xmas!!!